8 things to know about Earth Day

Alice Coyle acoyle@wickedlocal.com @accoyleWL

Monday

Apr 22, 2019 at 10:00 AM

It's Earth Day’s 49th birthday. The first Earth Day held April 22, 1970 was marked by peaceful demonstrations by some 20 million Americans in support of environmental protection and reform. It sparked the political change needed to create the EPA and the passage of landmark legislation including the Clean Air, Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Act.

In the nearly five decades since it was first celebrated in parks, on streets and college campuses across the U.S., Earth Day has become a global event feted with festivities and events in more than 192 countries. Here are eight more things to know about Earth Day.

1. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in the United States. In recognition of his hard work, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in 1995.

2. But Nelson wasn’t the only one with the idea. A year earlier, peace activist John McConnell had pitched a plan to honor the Earth and “give peace a chance” at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. McConnell proposed the celebration for March 21, 1970 - the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. A month after that, Nelson’s Earth Day began as an environmental teach-in.

3. Environmental Advocate Denis Allen Hayes, the coordinator for the first Earth Day and founder of the Earth Day Network, made the annual celebration global in 1990. For his efforts, Hayes earned the Jefferson Awards Medal for Outstanding Public Service and was named “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine in 1999.

4. On the first Earth Day in the U.S., 2,000 colleges and universities participated, along with 10,000 primary and secondary schools. Today, many communities and schools expand the holiday to an Earth Week celebration.

5. Popular Earth Day activities include planting trees, picking up litter along roadways and waterways, cleaning up parks and signing petitions for a better environment and better planet.

6. By 2010, Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, more than 1 billion people were celebrating Earth Day worldwide. Some remarkable international Earth Day efforts include: 100,000 people riding bikes in China to reduce CO2 emissions and save fuel; the planting of 28 million trees in Afghanistan by the Earth Day Network; and in Panama, planting and maintaining 100 endangered orchid to prevent their extinction.

7. Ending the plastic pollution “poisoning our oceans and land, injuring marine life, and affecting our health” was the Earth Day network's theme in 2018. Last year’s event was dedicated to providing the information and inspiration needed to fundamentally change human attitude and behavior about plastics.

8. For 2019, the Earth Day Network is asking people to join its Protect our Species campaign which aims to: Educate and raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon; protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats; build a global movement that embraces nature and its values, and encourage individual actions such as adopting plant based diet and stopping pesticide and herbicide use.

Sources: https://www.earthday.org ; https://www.dosomething.org; http://www.softschools.com; and https://en.wikipedia.org. For a list of Earth Day events in Massachusetts check out www.eventbrite.com/d/ma--boston/earth-day-events/